For a University student I'd suggest you buy a good laptop first. As good as you can afford. Possibly also buy an external keyboard and mouse. Check if you're living in halls for that first year that you can't connect it to a TV monitor in your room. Then you have a kind of desktop setup.

Ignore tablets. I've got 4 (iPad, 2 Androids and a Windows Tablet* as of this week) and they're all a massive compromise for any kind of work that involves typing, even with external keyboards.

Tablets are for lying on the sofa surfing, watching video and casual gaming.


* Microsoft UK were selling the HP Stream 7 for under £50 this week and I couldn't resist adding it to my website development testing stable. Might even use it for a server status display under my desktop monitor.